President Barack Obama faces a difficult challenge to target the Islamic
State (ISIS) in Syria without inadvertently bolstering the
authoritarian regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, The New York Times reported.

After three days of American airstrikes in the country, pro-government
Syrians are boasting that despite assurances by Obama otherwise, Assad
and the Syrian Army stand to gain from the offensive.

"The U.S. military leadership is now fighting in the same trenches with the Syrian generals, in a war on terrorism inside Syria," a Syrian diplomat told a pro-government newspaper, according to the Times. "The Syrian Army will certainly benefit from the American airstrikes."

The headline of the Syrian regime daily is: "Washington and its allies
are in the same trench with the Syrian army to combat terrorism".

If the House of Assad honestly believes that Washington is a co-partner in its war against ISIS terrorism then it has bigger problems than these terrorists, and its biggest is its illusory grip on reality.

Also, it is nothing to brag about when a hostile foreign power sponsors liver-chewing terrorists in your country and then turns around the next day and says it must attack your territory day and night to get rid of the threat that they say they pose not to the local neighbourhoods in which they're raping and pillaging but cities thousands of miles away, on the other side of the world.

Assad and his diplomats and journalists need to stop flattering themselves like fools, take a long, hard look in the mirror and realize that Washington is a wolf whose appetite in Syria won't end with ISIS and whose claws are long enough to swipe their necks if they get too complacent and greedy about their battlefield fortunes.

This is just more proof that pro-regime media anywhere in the world, especially those that are full-blown police states with secret spies and trained assassins at their disposal, are laughing stocks who do not deserve to be paid any attention.

"A no-fly zone must be declared and this no fly-zone must be secured,"
Erdogan said, adding that he had discussed the issue with President
Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

In addition, Erdogan said a "secure area" should be created on the
Syrian side of the Turkish border, where tens of thousands of Syrians
have fled the fighting as refugees. Turkey could probably protect such
an area with its artillery.

In Washington, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs
Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey did not rule out the possibility of
enforcing a buffer zone for Turkey's borders with Iraq and Syria, but
they would not discuss the potential of supporting a no-fly zone over
Syria.

The idea that Erdogan's Turkey will be the saviour of the Kurds and others who are battling ISIS in northern Syria when his government has been sponsoring and sheltering these terrorists for the last three years is ridiculous.

A no fly zone in Syria is not politically doable, whether the excuse given is to protect refugees fleeing from ISIS's terror campaign, help the Kurds, help the FSA, or stop the humanitarian catastrophe from getting even worse.

It's laughable that the same terrorist states who have created this humanitarian
disaster somehow believe they can get away with establishing a no fly
zone in Syria based on humanitarian grounds. These regimes have no legs to stand on in their faux fight against ISIS.

The only way a no-fly zone could maybe work in northern Syria is if there is a Turkish-PKK military alliance against ISIS, and that is never going to happen. The Turkish government is not going to double-cross ISIS because it will soon find themselves the victims of their attacks. They'll end the peace process with the PKK before taking away the welcome mat for ISIS. It is fighting a different war than America and the West, and it will use ISIS terrorism to its advantage as long as it is necessary.

The media never expands on any possible escalation of the war in Syria. What will be the consequences of a NATO no-fly zone in Syria with heavy involvement from Turkey? A Turkish military occupation of northern Syria/Western Kurdistan? That would escalate the war tenfold.

Unlike in Iraq, where there are pro-America, pro-West, pro-Israel, and business friendly Kurdish political parties who benefited from the US/UN imposed no fly zone in the 1990s, there are no political groups with actual constituencies in Syria who are willing to become political slaves of Washington in exchange for a no fly zone, supportive airstrikes, and arms.

The political exiles who represent the pseudo-rebel group the FSA have no political power, no popular support, and no social and cultural relevance in the country. So the truth is that the U.S. has no political allies on the ground in Syria to work with on a long-term basis in a post-Assad age, which is needed to ultimately defeat ISIL.

The PKK is one potential partner, but it will not sacrifice its political beliefs, vision, and morals to advance a US/NATO/Turkey agenda in Syria. And the U.S. will never arm the PKK, which would tremendously help in the war against ISIS, because they don't want to strengthen a force that won't advance its interests or anger an ally that is more useful to them and has served them reliably in the past.

Washington throws all kinds of high-level arms at ISIS terrorists in their fight against Assad because they know they will kill them all later on, one way or another, and it's easy to do because they are so demonizable, unlike the PKK.

Barack Obama has said that the participation of five Arab nations in
air raids against ISIL in Syria "makes it clear to the world this is not
America's fight alone".

The US president on Tuesday promised to continue the fight, which he
said was vital to the security of his country, the Middle East and the
world.

It is not a political achievement to get regimes on board to bomb terrorists who threaten them on another country's soil whose leader they hate even more than the terrorists, so President Obama is patting himself on the back a little too much.

Also, having Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Jordan, and Kuwait as allies is nothing to be too proud about. There is an end-date for these regimes, and it's sooner than they think.

These countries are not military powerhouses, they don't have a political or spiritual voice, they're not helping the region progress towards greater tolerance and understanding, they're not investing their oil-money in renewables, they're not thinking ahead, they're basically wasting away their wealth. So Washington's allies against ISIS in Syria are pretty much worthless.